I'll tell you about my favorite things...like Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music, minus the choreography and Oscar nomination. I love the sound of a crisp autumn wind tussling leaves along the wooden boards of a weathered porch combined with the exuberant babble of a nearby summer creek spilling over velvety, moss-covered stones. I delight in the delicate rhythm made from the whisper of breath that passes between an infant's lips as it sleeps; and I drink in the blues, on vinyl, cracking and popping through tweed covered speakers late at night when the only other sound is the hum of the refrigerator while I stand barefoot in a dark kitchen gazing out a leaded glass window at the stars. I relish the taste of something new, because it's a surprise, and whether I like it or not, it is a sensation different than any other I have experienced before...new combinations I hadn't yet imagined and it makes me hopeful to know that there is still newness in the world for me. I enjoy the contradiction of bitter, urgent espresso softened to caramel with heavy cream out of a carton and a spoon of amber sugar crystals that smell of decadence just on their own. I savor the molten tartness of apple cider broken up by a spark of cinnamon, early in the morning, sitting in a rocking chair, wrapped in an afghan, watching the kids kick their feet back and forth hesitantly as they wait for the school bus. I love to look at kaleidoscopes in the toy store and am unceasingly fascinated with the liquid transformation of color and light into a magnificent display that is meant only to be seen by me in that moment. I am enthralled with the art of Maxfield Parrish, especially Stars and Ecstasy, and his poetical use of blue hues which always seem to calm me in the same manner being near a body of water entices impatience and worry away from me. I love to gaze at eyes, intoxicated with the knowledge that most of what we believe in this world is trapped in the logic of those two delicate orbs and what they perceive. I am not afraid to stare penetratingly at someone even after they have looked away. We reveal so much of ourselves in the habits of our vision...what we focus on, what distracts us, what we avert from. I luxuriate in the smell of an old tack room, the leather, shaped and worn; the bits and bridles with their pungent, metallic scent tempering the leather; years worth of dust and hay bits settled into the cracks of creaking, musty floorboards. I love the fragrance of a newborn...new skin, new hair, new life...not yet blemished by the odors surrounding it, invading it, gradually changing it to something identifiable and belonging to a specific bouquet of smells. I anticipate the aromas of fall and all it promises...apples and pumpkins; crisp, vivid air; bonfires filled with cedar branches, piles of raked leaves I can bury my face in and be overcome with an earthy perfume that is rich and sweet and inspiring. I unbend at the feel of moist sand seeping up between my toes and cradling the bottom of my feet in a firm, cool embrace. I anticipate the encompassing flutter that unfolds in waves when I hear a longed-after voice laughing richly and electrically nearby. I treasure the press of my child's drooping head against the inner curve of my neck where the almost too-warm touch of young, sleepy skin pinches the hammer of my heart. Enough about me already...write and tell me all about YOU!